A data center is a facility used to house computing systems and their associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. A data center can include redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls, such as air conditioning and fire suppression equipment, as well as security devices. A data center may also be referred to as a server farm, because a data center can house a large number of server computing devices.
Historically data centers have been housed within stationary buildings. For instance, a location having a suitable size, at a suitable place, and that has access to sufficient electrical power may be selected. Thereafter, a building may be built on the location for the purpose of housing a data center.
More recently, however, data centers have been increasingly housed in shipping containers. A shipping container is a container that can be placed on the trailer of a truck, on a cargo car of a train, or on a ship. The shipping container of such a container-based data center includes all the equipment needed to implement the data center. The shipping container can thus be built at one location, and then transported to the location at which the data center is to be used.
After the shipping container reaches its destination, external power and data communication lines just have to be connected to the data center to begin using the data center, since all the equipment of the data center has already been installed within the container. Container-based data centers have become popular. This is because they are an easy and fast way by which additional computing capacity can be installed at a given location.